


A Sign

by Whispering_Sumire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love, M/M, Mind Reading, Prayer, Season/Series 06 Castiel, Season/Series 13 Dean, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, super-fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-02-12 09:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/pseuds/Whispering_Sumire
Summary: Dean's praying to Chuck, or Amarra, to whoever will listen, really, after Castiel's death.Castiel, on the other hand, is in the middle of betraying his best friends and praying to his father, God, asking for a sign.And suddenly, both men's prayers are answered, but not exactly in the way either of them expects.





	1. The Act of Praying

**Author's Note:**

> _I did a thing, I don't really know what's wrong with me, lol_  
>  I have no idea if this will be any good, but I really sincerely did my best.  
> Many thanks, and much love to anyone who reads it!  
> Muah!
> 
> A/N: Totally edited the shit out of this, lol

Once he finds himself far enough away from Sam, and all his fretting quiet, Dean prays. He prays like he is desperate and drowning, and if he's being honest with himself, he kind of is. He screws his eyes shut so forcefully he sees stars, his knees pressed into the uneven concrete, and his hands shakily knit together. It feels raw, like he's cracking himself open and baring his soul in an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability, and more like begging than anything.

The body language of prayer and the body language for praying are so intensely similar that he sometimes wonders if the first people to pray had just been begging and pleading with the world like he was, now. Only, they had gotten an answer, enough of one to go off and tell everybody they knew that they ought to pray like _this_ \- groveling in a fucking alley- in order to be heard.

Dean suspects he's not going to get an answer.

He doesn't really feel like he _deserves_ one, but some part of him feels like he might be _owed_ one. For all he's fucked up the world, he's saved it, _multiple_ times. Saved it until his hands were bloody and he'd run himself ragged and exhausted, having lost everyone he'd ever truly, deeply loved.

Except for Sam.

That should probably make him feel better.

It doesn't.

Suddenly, as he begins to open his eyes with a sigh, defeated and resigned, the world just- _moves_.

* * *

"You have to tell me, you have to give me a _sign!_ " Castiel is shouting fruitlessly into the frigid air of some snowy park somewhere. Dean chokes past a gasp of surprise and tries to ignore the stutter-shock vertigo of time travel. He'd only done it a few times, but he knows what it feels like, knows that that's what this is. Besides, it only takes one look- dive, really- into those wide, river-blue eyes. Surprised, scared, and so very, very young. He was even still wearing that old trench-coat, the first one, the one that had been abandoned and destroyed due to the leviathans.

"Hey-a, Cas," Dean says, unable to fully ignore the weird, excited sort of hysteria that's bubbling up in the back of his throat, the hope. Because that's Cas, really _Cas_ , in front of him. It should bother him that it isn't _now_ Cas, but it doesn't, because at least he's _alive_ like this.

The angel looks stunned, and a little like he kind of wants to run away, like he's been caught doing something offensive. And, again, Dean doesn't really care, he should do, but he can't bring himself to.

Instead, he grabs Cas' arms and pulls him roughly up and off of the stone bench he'd been sitting on and into a hug. He breathes an odd little huff of bewilderment as Dean cradles him in his arms.

The hunter takes in the feel of the chest against his, lets his nose graze stubble and reverently take in smells he'd thought he would never be allowed to consume again. A crushed little whimper bubbles up then, one he has absolutely no control over. Mom, Charlie, Kevin, Bobby, the whole world tilting on its own axis several times over, all of it, all of that emotion he's been holding in, comes out of him in a frantic rush. He tightens his hold on the one person who had kept him sane, the person who had _broken_ him when he died, there in his arms. Warm. Alive.

He tries to breathe, tries to stop shaking, stop sobbing like a child. 

All he can manage is to hiccup through burning tears and curl into Castiel as much as humanly possible. It's so vulnerable, and terrifying, and beyond whatever raw is, but _fuck it_ , because this is _Cas_ , in his arms.

Apparently, there are a lot of things he doesn't care about when it came to Cas. Maybe he'd stopped caring about them all a long time ago.

* * *

Stunned, flabberghasted, perplexed; none of these words even come close to covering what Castiel feels as Dean holds him fast, shuddering scared little wet noises into the side of his throat that are altogether too human. Part of him is wondering how much Dean heard, but it can't have been much considering how the man is allowing himself to be so small and vulnerable in front of him. What Dean's doing right now requires an amount of trust that means he _couldn't_ have heard what Castiel had been saying, praying.

Cas is also wondering what he should do about this righteously strong man, that he happened to be _betraying_ , opening up to him in this way.

His arms, almost of their own accord, wrap around Dean's back in what Castiel hopes is a comforting way.

Questions wound themselves around his mind difficulty: How had Dean appeared like this out of nowhere? A spell? Was the timing just a _coincidence_? How is his soul so impossibly _more_ than it was?

Castiel knows the Winchesters have a tendency to grow their souls with the jagged harsh lives they lead and all the love they cultivate in spite of it, he's familiar, now, with the fact that Dean and Sam have two of the vastest, most complicated souls he has ever seen, but _this_? This is different. There's, somehow, an immeasurable dichotomy between how bright his soul is now, compared to how it _was_ a few mere hours ago.

It's very odd.

* * *

Calm finally settles into him, with Cas' hands doing odd little circles on his back like the angel isn't entirely sure what this hug thing is all about, or what's going on in general.

It occurs to Dean that he has no idea _when_ he is, and that he needs the shiver-shake of crying like you've just let go of _everything_ to leave him so that he can pull away from Cas' embrace without feeling like his legs will give way for long enough to actually carry on some sort of conversation.

But the angel is letting him, is strong under him and taking all of his weakness without even an ounce of complaint, is all kind and soft and strong and real and goddamn _beautiful_.

In a minute, just one more minute, he tells himself, then he'll let go and ask what day- what _year_ it is.


	2. A Glimpse Into The Future

Dean has finally calmed, and is managing to make himself let go, but only just. His arms seem to want desperately to hold on, to find purchase against Castiel again and use him as an anchor. He'd been holding on for hours, and Castiel's just now realizing that the man's clothes aren't really suitable for this weather, and that Dean's shivering probably isn't just from emotion any longer.

"You're cold," he concludes aloud.

"Yeah, but it's fine Cas," Dean says, quiet and sincere in a way he never is. "Look, I need you to tell me something..." 

The hunter steels himself to stop shivering, visibly squares his shoulders as seriously as he can despite how heavy-tired he looks. How old. It's very concerning.

"What is it, Dean?" Castiel manages, keeping the wary out of his voice. Had his prayer been overheard after all?

"What year is it?" Dean asks gravely, and it finally dawns.

Old.

Dean looks so much _older_ by human standards. Why hadn't he noticed before?

"2010," the angel answers quietly, because a future Dean standing in front of him is very obviously two things: evidence that a future _existed_ , and a sign.

Dean's eyebrows raise, and then several flashes of emotion sample his face in quick succession: Relief, gratitude, concern, confusion, heavy appraisal, anger, and then, finally, a sigh of resigned understanding.

"Before the Leviathans," Dean breathes, gruff, shaking his head, and then half-chuckling to himself. "Chuck, I don't know if you're a genius, or just an ass," he mutters heavenward spreading his arms out like he's shrugging, or like he doesn't know what to do with them, or like he's just expansively gesturing at the whole forsaken world.

"You're from the future?" Castiel finally asks, for though he's sure he knows the answer, he still needs confirmation.

"Yes," Dean answers, looking back down into his eyes with a sudden solemnity- exhausted, a little furious, but mostly contemplative. It's a new mix of emotions that Castiel has never seen on him, and they're all so heavy and sharp that it makes his heart clench to see them settle there calmly, like Dean's made _peace_ with being all broken and jagged edges.

"Did Chuck cast a sp-"

"Chuck is God," Dean tells him before he can finish. He says it so simply, like he's known it for a while, and the rage within him flares a little, like he's less than happy about it.

"That isn't-"

"He is, even if you don't believe me, he is." Dean says, not unkindly, but with a little bit of impatience. He shivers with a start as if his body's just reminded him how cold it is, and he sighs.

"You still have your Grace," he assesses as if there's some sort of possibility he _wouldn't_ have it, which seems impossible, but Dean's eyes are steady. He's vibrant, and still so open, laid bare and unhidden like he can't possibly put up walls in front of Castiel because there's _too much_ there. This is a trust he hasn't earned yet, and part of him fiercely wants to know how he _had_. "You can read my mind," Dean continues, suggestively, inclining his head until his breath is tangling with Castiel's, damp and warm.

For a second Castiel wonders confusedly if he's being accused of something, because Dean's voice is surly and teased sharp around the edges with a small amount of fury that Castiel can't link to anything else.

"Yes, but I would never-"

"Don't get defensive, you idiot, I'm _asking_ you to. I have a feeling everything will go a lot smoother if you just see it yourself. Besides, I don't know how much time I have-" his voice goes a little low, here, with something akin to terror, for reasons Castiel can't fathom- "so just dive into my melon and get it over with."

Castiel worries that this isn't a good idea, but he knows now, with all of his being, that this is his sign, this is what he had been praying for. And if his father wants him to see into the mind of a Dean from the future, he isn't about to let the opportunity go to waste, especially if it means he might get the upper hand in this battle with Raphael.

So when Dean presses his forehead against his, Castiel ignores the fact that _his_ Dean would probably call this an invasion of privacy, of space, of _everything_ and reaches out-

* * *

Cas, Castiel, Castiel. Dread is bottled up and covered as usual, as too familiar, with rage, violence, rampage, murder.

So, so many are dead.

Cas' eyes glazed-glass in the moonlight, an awkward sound clacking as the sliver of tempered-space that led to another dimension snicked shut. Terror, hopeless, agony, enough to want to go with him, enough to want to follow him into The Empty and just give up.

Go deeper, show, tell, change everything. Dean urges him, restlessly, relentlessly, go _deeper._

Chaos, horror, blood. Anger that pulses and charges and changed him into something else, into a deathless demonic fury that couldn't be abated, that twisted and writhed under his skin. Sharp, agitated, prickling understanding of Lucifer, of an Archangel, forced to wear something that would've torn him into hateful shreds, and God, Chuck, standing by and letting it happen.

Charlie bloody and broken and smelling of Death- Death who _he killed._

Another person on a long list, just the next loved one to die, die as they all did, as they all _do_.

Amarra, lust-addled attraction, push-pull, punch-shock, and such intense guilt it probably should've driven him insane. God had a sister, and they had saved the world again only to be abandoned by God entirely so that a family older than time and more vast and complicated than should be _imaginable_ could work out their issues with enough humanity on their tongues to make Dean want to scream profanities at them both, despite the awe he had for the two entities. An awe he did not want to admit to. _Ever_.

Mom, mother, mommy, liar. She was awake, alive, present somehow, and then just gone. All unhappy scars and broken heart and something that was worse than abandonment. He had forgiven her all of it, how could he not?

Then she was sacrificing herself for him, for Sam, as was the Winchester way.

Further, deeper, c'mon Cas, come on. To the Leviathans, to Bobby scaring the hell out of them as a spirit hell-bent on fighting with them; to Bobby in the hospital with a bullet wound in his head; to Sammy. Beautiful and broken and hallucinating a Hell Dean could only have _nightmares_ about, smiling sadly at him in a mental hospital like he had already given up on himself, because losing your mind steady-slow like that might've been worse than the actual dying.

Might've been worse than the Cage that had caused it all, because he couldn't even make himself believe he wasn't in it. That would've been the perfect torture for Lucifer to dream up, wouldn't it?

_"He's not real,"_ Dean had told him.

_"He says the same thing about you,"_ Sam had answered with a quiet, grim resignation that had made Dean wish for all the world that he could punch Cas in the face.

Because Cas was the one who had torn down the wall.

Opened Sam's newly returned soul to all that Lucifer had done to it and made him choke on a reality that threatened to drown him in _madness_.

Betray, cold, brutal, selfish. Tense-sharp.

* * *

Dean feels Cas make a hollow, distressed sound in the back of his throat, disbelieving, scared.

The angel's eyes are scrunched shut with concentration, and he's shivering in a very oddly human way that makes Dean's breath hitch. He puts his hands around the back of Cas' neck and shushes him quietly, moving the pads of his thumbs in small, reverent circles just under Cas' jaw. He presses his forehead harder against the angel's and breathes in deep, their noses rubbing against one another intimately as he draws him ever closer.

"It's okay. It's okay, Cas, just keep going," Dean assures him in a murmur, coaxing him to dive deeper, because he _needs_ to know.

* * *

Dean gets it now, it settles deep, he'd known as soon as he'd realized what year it was- the moment he saw his shit-scared angel pray to an absent father. It was just families, and choosing the wrong one. He hadn't come to them for help because he was still clinging to his old family. They weren't totally connected yet, not really, not in the same way. Not in the way that made Cas give up an army to save him, not in the way that made Cas offer with a firmly set jaw to go with Dean on that day when the sun was going out and God was dying, not in the way that made Cas gank a reaper simply because it would keep the Winchesters safe, it wasn't complete, real, _them_ yet.

Which was okay, long forgiven, long since made whole.

_"I'll find some way to redeem myself to you."_

Long since redeemed, naked with bees and honey and insane in Sam's place, his little brother's savior in the very end, unflinching.

It was a mistake, not clean, most certainly not honest, but a mistake nonetheless.

So many mistakes, so _many_ more than Cas, were Dean's. Setting free the darkness, accepting the Mark of Cain, Kevin, Charlie, Bobby, Mom, more- more than he could name or see in a quick rush of succession, and blood on his soul that he could never truly wash clean.

Lies, sickly sweet, and thick. Then Crowley, for both of them.

Cas playing tricks, swallowing purgatory whole and trying to take on a title that did not belong to him.

One he couldn't _comprehend._

Castiel went on a rampage as a new corrupted God until the Leviathans started to eat him alive. Until it was too late, and Cas disappeared in the water.

Dick. All teeth, mouth, smoke-bite, death-kiss. New friends: a prophet who ended with smoking eyes, who tried to trust them and was murdered by Gadreel via Sam's hand and Dean's choices- terrible choices. A nerdy red-head who had wanted quests and dragons and candy, who fell into Oz, who he had beaten horribly when the slick blood taste of rage was an all-encompassing threat within him, who died soft-edged and crumpled in the bathroom of some crappy nondescript motel.

But that was later, it was all raw and tangled in, and bile, and white-hot, and feel, but _later._

Dick Roman and dick jokes and Bobby dead first, borax and fear, running, and this was only their _second_ apocalypse. Silly, funny, smaller. Knife in throat, then purgatory.

Black, white, monsters, clean.

Kill, run, kill, run, find Cas, keep him safe.

Love, love, loss, Cas, Castiel, do you see?

You asked for a sign, do you see it, now?

Please, Cas.

Small, broken, fury-hope, no more.

Raphael is actually, really very small.

Smaller than Lucifer, Abaddon, Metatron, Crowley, Rowena, and God's sister.

Smaller than Lucifers' child, Jack, whoever Jack will become.

It's okay, Cas, really, it'll be okay.

Angels don't know what it's like to be human, most of them are idiots. Freedom isn't natural to them, no grand-plan isn't natural to them. Knocking sense into them won't be easy, telling them humans and earth and joy and love and sex are better than simple apocalyptic extinction will confuse them, anger them.

But it's better, has to be better, better than the alternative.

Especially if it means Castiel won't die.

Dean wonders in a small part of him that he doesn't even _try_ to hide, if this will kill him, if there's some stutter-stop sort of time thing that will inevitably snuff him out because Cas changes things, decides differently.

He'd wanted to die the moment Cas had, so he wonders if it's kind of okay.

There's a whisper-sweet, tense, ludicrous joy because Castiel is right there, right here with him, not-dead- younger, and a little less- but _alive._

He wonders what ceasing to exist might do to him, because that's the only way this ends, isn't it? Snuffed out by time, which is different than dying, different than Reapers.

Dean discovers, as with so many other things, that he doesn't really care anymore, and-

* * *

A kiss.

Castiel is still inside of Dean's mind, still a part of thoughts that sweep him under their tide, and plunge him into something that is as comforting as it is diamond-sharp and broken. Thoughts dreamily wander into something close to peace, to joy, as Dean presses their lips together. He crushes Castiel's soft gasp against his mouth, and kisses him like he's the only thing that's ever truly mattered. Like there's _hope_ on his tongue that Dean might be able to scrape free if he just goes deep enough.

* * *

I love you, Cas.

* * *

Castiel feels Dean whimper softly against wet, bruised lips. Feels him press two fingers to his temple, like Dean is trying to heal _him_ for once.

Feels him smile in a soft, fragile, lost way.

And then Dean is _gone_.

Castiel opens his eyes, knowing that he's alone now. No cold, desperate, tired, suicidal Dean, older and bigger and stronger. That future, that time he had come from is gone, lost, because there's no way Castiel is going to continue on this path.

No way he would let Dean down, let Sam go mad, let Bobby die.

He would never _ever_ allow it. Not again.

He swallows, presses fingers to his lips with a reverence he didn't even know he was capable of.

His cheeks were still wet with Dean's tears, or maybe his own, though he hadn't thought himself capable of crying. Then again, he is beginning to seriously doubt many assumptions he's had about himself.

His lips sting.

That kiss had felt like a prayer. Like a terrified, begging plea.

Like worship.

Castiel swallows again, thick, and tries to reconcile himself with how honestly human, how shaky and hollowed out and _real_ he feels right now. God, or rather, Chuck (apparently) had answered him. His father gave him the sign he'd asked for. Or Dean had given it to him, it feels more sincere to believe that _Dean_ has given this.

He asked for a sign from God and Dean gave him his answer.

He wonders numbly if that's a kind of blasphemy and realizes he really doesn't care if it is.

* * *

Dean is packing guns into a duffel bag while he listens with sharp intent to his brother clambering around in the bathroom. He's on edge, he knows, still unable to trust the sanctity of a soul freshly harvested from Lucifer's tenacious grasp.

There's a distant sound of wings as the curtains flutter with some invisible impact. Dean twists around fast enough to almost render himself off balance, almost.

"Cas, jesus," Dean breathes, seeing the angel mere inches away from his face. "Personal space, man. We've talked about this," he chastises for what seems like the thousandth time.

Cas steps back, a little heavier than usual. His eyes are deep, sad, and somehow more certain than Dean's ever seen them. More confident, even, than when he stepped forward in that barn all that time ago. And more doom-struck.

"Cas, what's up? You okay?" Dean asks, suddenly consumed with worry, because something must've happened. Something _goddamn terrible_ must've happened for him to look like that.

The angel looks at his feet and takes a shaky breath, one that makes it sound as if he's about to fucking _cry_. Dean's heart clenches painfully in his chest.

"I have made a treacherous mistake," Castiel confesses, finally, breaking the pregnant pause with a tremulous voice, "please help me, please, Dean. I'm so sorry. I wanted to help, but I was wrong, I was just _so_ wrong."


	3. Love That Tastes Like Worship

Sam is sitting on the edge of the motel bed with astonishment still sending sickly little pricks all over his skin. Dean, on the other hand, is pacing around the room, all aggressive stomps and suffocating wrath, hands running down his face and through his hair in agitated restlessness.

Castiel stands, his head hanging down, hunched in on himself with shame, smaller than Sam's ever seen him. His lips are a little bruised, from what, Sam doesn't know, and his eyes are glistening in a terrifyingly human way.

"I can't believe you, Cas, _Crowley_?!" Dean's obviously trying to restrain himself from shouting, as he turns on Cas with an expansive gesture, and anger turning his face red-hot.

Castiel actually flinches.

Dean had his mouth open, his foot forward as if he was going to go into some sort of lecture, but at the angel's small motion he's rendered frozen in shock.

When Sam had come out of the bathroom, Dean had informed him that Castiel wanted to confess something, and the confession had rather been what Sam had expected, what Dean had, up until this moment, been absolutely unwilling to believe. And Castiel had looked cowed the whole way. A voice normally like gravel and earth and war had been soft, still that low depth, still that inclination of doom that always had a home in his words, but lyrical and lilting too, like it was a comfort to let all those plans go. Somehow it almost sounded like hope and grief and a little bit like something he was willing to die for.

"What made you tell us, Cas?" Sam asks, startling Dean away from whatever guilty thought process had probably consumed him the moment he realized he had made an _angel cower_. "I mean, after all this time?"

"I prayed, I asked God for a sign, and he gave me one," Castiel answers, soft, still looking at his feet, still slumped small, still so oddly human.

" _God_ gave you a sign?" Dean asks incredulously, a bite laced in his voice, but he's stepped back and has gone down to soft bitterness from his previous stupid-thick loathe-filled venom, apparently having decided that making an angel cry, especially when that angel was _Cas_ , might not really be worth it.

Sam's wondering what on earth, and how, and why now, after all this time? Wasn't God just- just _gone_? And what could he have given Castiel to make him this intensely humbled? Where the hell was God during everything else?

"No," Castiel says simply, finally turning dazzling blue eyes away from the floor to face them, to face Dean. His eyes are so full of faith, a faith so intimate and pure, and all of it focused steadfastly on Dean. It's so passionate, fierce, devoted, and carnal that Sam feels like he's intruding on something, like this is so wholly meant for his elder brother that he's got no right to witness it.

Dean takes in a confused, shaky little breath, and for all the world looks like he wants to run away- from that gaze, from those eyes- to be anywhere else that isn't directly in front of it.

" _Dean_ did." Cas tells them. He speaks Dean's name like it carries the weight of everything kind and beautiful and holy within it.

Sam's beginning to suspect Castiel has more faith in Dean, now, than he had _ever_ had in God, because it's heavy in the air, because Cas is brimming with it, and it's singing in the room, loud, with a need to be noticed.

"I didn't _do anything!"_ Dean croaks, half-shouts, shaky and confused, with a small amount of bewildered amusement, exasperated annoyance, all too much and all at once. His whole body tenses, as if to fight, as if to run, but he steps forward instead, like a magnet's pulling him, tugging him closer to the angel, like he has no choice, like he needs to be _closer_ because the look on Cas' face isn't something you can escape, it's impossible.

Sam kind of wants to leave now, just a little bit.

Castiel just smiles, a fond, tender, willowy sort of thing on his too-red lips that fills his face with an immaculate brightness and compassion and humanity. He looks like he knows something he can't ever explain, or maybe, is too kind to put into words.

And he looks at Dean like he could accept that killing-rage, and keep smiling all the same; like he could give, hope, and laugh unhindered, and wouldn't mind at all if Dean looked him through, judged him worthy of a death sentence for the mistake he's made, and killed him himself. A mistake he had made to win a war he doesn't even seem to _care_ about anymore. It's like it just doesn't, _can't_ , continue to matter in the face of- _whatever_ this is.

It's somehow so human it tumbles into something else entirely. Something divine, until he is more Angel, now, than Sam had even thought possible.

Pliant, innocent-pure, love-full.

Love pours into every single crevice and fold and space until it's spilling out of him and eclipsing Dean who looks as terrified of it as he is intrigued by it, drawn to it.

Castiel is in love with his brother, to the point that his feelings buzzed through the air, hummed against his skin, and whispered delicately into every dark corner of the shitty motel room they were in until everything's at least two times brighter, more vibrant.

Sam really kind of wants to give them some alone-time.

"Yeah, Dean," Sam finally says into the sickeningly sweet thick-happy atmosphere Cas has created with just a fucking _look_ , "I don't know how, dude, but you definitely did _something_."

* * *

Maybe it was because of how Cas was acting, and how willing he was to be ordered around, and how he was behaving for all the world like he was Dean's puppy, but, somehow, forgiving him came extremely easy, for Sam most of all, for Bobby a little begrudgingly, and for Dean very, very complicatedly.

Sam is sympathetic. And also, _intensely_ amused.

They work together against Crowley, who's extremely dissatisfied that the angel has decided not to join the dark side after all.

They work together against Raphael and all that he brings. Raphael had apparently been planning with Crowley to double-cross Castiel (how Cas had known this was never fully explained, and for fear of some weird Dean entranced smile that fills whole rooms- could probably overflow a fucking _stadium_ \- none of them press), but they manage to stop the whole plan easily enough:

They find a witch named Rowena, discover that she's Crowley's mom (which is all kinds of fucked up), and pressure her into creating a spell that would discount any purgatory eclipse-powered gate. She seems happy just to screw over her son, all the happier to get away from an angel who is extremely willing to kill her if she doesn't do as they ask, and, with that in mind, she actually helps them.

So Raphael and Crowley lose their window.

Crowley actually lost _interest_ , or promised to, if they gave him information on his mother so he could promptly find and torture her and kill her.

Raphael isn't so easy.

He and so many angels wanted- _want_ \- to start an apocalypse. There are also more powerful angels coming out of the woodwork, now. Naomi, in particular, Cas seems wary of. Has told them that Naomi apparently has ways of getting inside angels heads, some kind of torture that makes them lose their free-will entirely, if they even had any to start with.

When asked how he knew this, he had looked at Dean like maybe Dean had become the sunrise, and he'd smiled until the room was bursting and Dean was fidgeting. Bobby had rolled his eyes, exasperated and fond, because too many things were making Cas do that these days, and Sam had laughed because he was starting to feel like Dean was actually secretly enjoying it. And because seeing his brother so uncomfortable will never cease to be anything short of absolutely _hilarious_.

And knowing that maybe Dean was falling in love with Cas, too?

That was good.

Very, very good.

They're engaged in what is essentially a civil war with the angels, with as many angels against them as there're angels with them (which is honestly surprising, and lovely, really), and Castiel and Dean are falling hopelessly in love.

For the first time in a long, long while, the world isn't actually ending, because they're _winning_ more often than not, and even though a war is bloody, it isn't an apocalypse.

It just _isn't._

So, they live.

They live, and live, and _live._

And it's _wonderful._


	4. A Little Update

Hello, hi! You're all beautiful and I love you! Which is part of the reason why, after having had some time actually writing on AO3 and figuring out my own style (for the most part) I decided to completely and totally revamp this work :)

If you're only finding it now, I hope you enjoyed it! And if you've read it before, I hope you like it even _better_ now!

Anyway, that's all from me folks, have a great day!!


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